


never be like you

by brahe



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: 5+1, 5+1 Things, Academy Era, Angst, Confessions of love, Domestic, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fighting, Fluff, Getting Together, Insecurity, M/M, Mild Cursing, Panic Attack, Starfleet Academy, Stargazing, baggage, everyones angry at some point, its like a freaking baggage claim, jim has a lot of doubts, the admirals are kind of jerks in this, there's a lot about george
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7659733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brahe/pseuds/brahe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Everyone around this place treats me like I'm him. I'm never gonna be like him," Jim says. "I don't know what they expect."</p><p>Or, five times Jim talked about his father and the one time his father talked about him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	never be like you

**Author's Note:**

> yall this fic gave me so much trouble, but i finished it! yay! it's heavily influenced the song never be like you by flume. i recommend listening to it (its also a great mckirk song, and a great song in general, so there's that)
> 
> many many thanks to my girl allison @commandtrek bc this wouldn't be finished if it wasn't for her

1\. (drunk)

  
The first time Jim talks about his father, he's been drinking since noon. They've only been at the Academy a week, shared a dorm for less than that. Leonard comes back from a placement test to find Jim, lights dimmed, halfway through a bottle of whiskey.

  
Leonard picks up a glass off the floor, notices the shattered pieces around it.

  
"Are you trying to kill yourself?" he says. He hears Jim grunt from the small sofa.

  
"So what if I am?"

  
Leonard sighs and picks up the large shards off the carpet and puts them in what remains of the tumbler, the glass on glass making a sharp, ringing sound in the dorm.  
He puts it on a table on the other side of the room before he falls onto the soda beside Jim.

  
"What's going on?" he asks

  
Jim's answering laugh is short and self-deprecating.

"What's going on is I just enlisted in a school where everyone older than thirty wants to call me George."

"Jim-"

"It's all his fault, you know? I'm just a fucked up kid from Nowhere, Iowa, and it's all his fault."

Leonard could have guessed he'd be an angry drunk. But it's more than that; his voice is shaking, and so is his body. There's more than loathing in his tone.

"Jim, listen to me-"

"You know what's the worst?" Jim sounds startlingly clear when he asks, and he suddenly looks at Leonard with bright, bright blue eyes. Leonard blinks at him, shakes his head.

"I miss him. I shouldn't, but I do. I never got to know him, and everyone around this place treats me like I'm him, and it drives me fucking crazy. Makes me miss a ghost."

Leonard isn't quite sure what to say to that. Hell, he's only known the kid for six days, and he didn't even realize his roomie was George Kirk's mystery kid until he overheard some of the other cadets whispering about it.

"I'm never gonna be like him," Jim says, and the anger's gone. "I don't know what they expect."

Leonard takes Jim's drink from his hands and downs the rest of it.

"Sitting around being sorry for yourself ain't gonna change a thing," he says. He thinks about his own father, all the baggage he's carrying. "'sides, you ain't special. I ever tell you about my old man?"

 

 

 

2\. (break down)

  
The second time Jim talks about his father, it's in the hallway outside the history wing's lecture hall.

  
Leonard's called out of his class by one of the nurses who comes in, discreet, and escorts him across the building.

  
"What happened?" he asks, trying to prepare himself. It's been all of three months at the Academy, and Jim's been under Leonard's care for everything from allergic reactions to broken bones.

"Panic attack, I think," the nurse says. Leonard didn't expect to hear that.

"You're listed as his attending physician," she says, perhaps taking his silence as a question. "And his next of kin."

She sounds confused, but she doesn't ask. Leonard lets that information sink in as they walk.

They round the corner and Jim's there, a bundle of red on the floor, looking rather like a stain in the stark, white hall. Leonard doesn't try to hide the way he runs to him, lowering himself on his knees, nearly sliding up beside him.

His hands hover above Jim for a moment, making no contact, as he listens for breath. Jim's quiet, but his breathing is stuttering, almost sob-like.

"Hey, Jim," Leonard says, keeping his voice soft and even. "It's just me."

There's no reaction from Jim, but Leonard keeps talking anyway. He reaches for Jim's wrist, lightly wrapping his fingers around it, narrating his movements the whole time.

"Just need to check your pulse," he says, counting the beats of Jim's heart under his fingertips. It's elevated, of course, but nothing dangerous. Leonard sighs and rubs his fingers against the inside of Jim's wrist.

There's a stutter and a hiccup and then Jim picks his head up, blinking bright, glassy blue eyes at him.

"'ones?"

Leonard smiles for just a moment.

"Yeah, Jim, it's me. How's it going?"

Jim twists his wrist around to grab securely onto Leonard's hand and squeezes. Leonard notices the shine on Jim's cheeks, the way his nose is a splotchy red and his eyes are puffy.

"They were talking about him," he says. His voice is low and scratchy, and half of Leonard has the mind to leave and get him something to drink. The death grip Jim has on his wrist has a different idea.

"The _Kelvin_. The same stuff I hear all the damn time, it's always the same. How many lives he saved, how brave he was." Jim sounds almost angry, and Leonard thinks back to the first time they talked about George.

"They played the audio," Jim says, and his voice gets high and dies at the end. He squeezes his eyes shut and there's tear drops on his lashes. Leonard sits next to him, presses his body to Jim's, shoulder to foot.

"I couldn't - I couldn't listen to it. I can't listen to his voice, I don't know why."

Jim sounds so upset, so confused, and Leonard wishes there was more he could do for him.

"I'll never be like him. Every time I hear it, I feel guilty." Jim's head falls back against the wall, and he takes several deep breaths. "Bones, _why_ -" He chokes off on a sob.

"Hey, look at me," Leonard says. He shifts, facing Jim, and brackets his face with his hands. "Look at me."

Jim's eyes are such a brilliant blue, made brighter by the shine of tears.

"It's okay," Leonard tells him. Jim shakes his head, but Leonard forces his gaze back to him.

"Everything's okay."

"How do you know?" Jim asks, nearly accuses.

"Because I know you," Leonard says. It's his turn to squeeze Jim's hand, and he keeps his thumb rubbing small circles against Jim's wrist.

" _He'll_ never be like _you_."

 

 

 

3\. (speech)

  
The third time Jim talks about his father, he's asked to give a speech. The administration had been having a field day with George Kirk's kid set to follow his footsteps to a starship. They haven't been at the Academy for a year when they ask Jim to talk on Remembrance Day.

Leonard's with Jim when two of the admirals approach him.

"Cadet Kirk, we'd like to speak with you," the one says. The other eyes Leonard.

"Alone," she adds.

Jim looks at Leonard, a little lost, but it only takes Leonard a moment to put two and two together. Remembrance Day is next week, and this is George's son.

"No," Leonard says, crossing his arms. He glares at the admirals until they look uncomfortable. Good.

Jim turns to Leonard, raising an eyebrow.

"Bones, what's going on?" he asks, keeping his voice low.

"Think about it, Jim," Leonard says, still glaring at the two admirals. "Thursday."

It clicks, then, if Jim's sharp breath is anything to go by. No doubt he'd done the best he could to put the date out of his mind.

Jim's hand finds Leonard's arm and wraps lightly around it.

"Bones, it's okay," he says, soft, and turns back to the admirals. His smile is fake and it stirs up Leonard's anger even more.

"No, it's not," he nearly growls.

"Cadet McCoy," the one, the female, starts.

" _Doctor_ McCoy," he interrupts. She just blinks.

"While we appreciate your concern for Cadet Kirk," the other tries, "it's entirely unnecessary."

"What's unnecessary is your complete lack of respect and dignity," Leonard says. He can feel Jim's eyes on him, but he doesn't take his gaze off the admirals.

"Cadet McCoy, are you really insinuating-"

" _Doctor_ McCoy."

They both look rather pissed, now. The female starts again. "Are you insinuating that the Starfleet administration officers have no regard to propriety?"

"I'm not _insinuating_ anything," Leonard says. Jim's hand is back on his arm, and it halts the rest of Leonard's rather scathing comment. Leonard actually looks at him, now, at the tense set of his shoulders, the hand curled into a fist at his side. It's a contrast to the almost soft way he looks at Leonard, as if he's surprised someone cares about him enough to stand up for him.

"Look, Bones, it's okay. I got it."

"Jim, you don't owe anyone anything," Leonard says. The anger in his tone is directed at the admirals that are clearly listening to their conversation.

"I know," Jim sighs, and his smile is a sad one. It's a rather strange, nearly scary feeling, Jim thinks, someone having your back so readily, after years of nothing. He could've disappeared from that house in Iowa, and no one would have cared. The contrast throws him for a loop.

"Jim," Leonard starts, and Jim can see the rage building again.

"Bones," Jim says, cutting him off. "Really. It's okay. I'll never be like him, but I can try, right?"

Leonard sighs, and it's a release of anger more than anything. He holds his hands up in surrender, steps behind Jim. He pauses before he walks away, settling a hand briefly on Jim's shoulder.

 

 

 

Jim's speech is the best Remembrance Day has ever seen. He delivers it perfectly, a veritable poster boy for Starfleet and its program.

It makes Leonard's skin crawl.

The crowd gathered for the speech disperses into the pavilions across the green, talking in reverent tones and hushed opinions. Leonard pours a drink for Jim and one for himself, waiting just outside the crowd.

He watches Jim step off stage, watches the tense way he walks across the field, blowing off any admiral that comes within a few feet of him. He doesn't stop until he's standing in front of

Leonard, taking the glass and downing it all at once.

"Hello to you, too," Leonard says. Jim's smile is tight, and he grabs Leonard's glass, too.

"Hey, I was drinking that!"

"Trust me, I need it more than you," Jim says. He clears his throat and exhales.

"Yeah, whatever," Leonard grumbles, but he doesn't much care. He knows Jim's right.

"How bad was it?" Jim asks, and it almost looks like he's already flinching.

"That was the best damn speech I've ever heard in my life," Leonard says.

"Don't bullshit me, Bones."

"I'm not! God's truth. You got a future as a speechwriter, kid."

They're quiet for a moment, the sounds of the gathering behind them muted.

"They told me he was good at speeches," Jim says eventually. "Must be genetic."

"I ain't ever heard a speech by George Kirk," Leonard says. "But I know I'm sure as hell gonna be hearing many from Jim Kirk." He pauses a moment, wishing there was more scotch in either of their glasses. "He'll never be like you."

Jim looks into his glass as if he's wishing for the same thing, before his gaze shoots up to Leonard, eyebrow raised.

"At least you're right about one thing," Jim says, and Leonard knows he's missed the point of the comment.

"One thing?" Leonard says, instead of explaining himself, because neither of them have had enough to drink to talk about those kinds of feelings. So instead they fall into their usual banter, and Leonard ignores all the things that go unsaid.

 

 

 

4\. (mistake)

  
The fourth time Jim talks about his father, it's finals week. Their dorm has been full of nothing but books and PADDs, because Jim has a year and a half's worth of courses to test on, and Leonard's just trying to keep up.

It's late, the night before testing starts. It's been quiet for a while, and still. Sometime after midnight, Leonard finds his eyes drifting to Jim with increasing frequency. His blonde head hasn't moved from where it's been bent over a book for hours. Leonard knows Jim hasn't moved, either, only enough to turn the page. He sighs, closes his PADD with perhaps more force than necessary. It joins the others on the floor with a clang. 

"Eat some food, Jim," Leonard says, half a sigh. There's no response, and he's not surprised.

"Jim, eat something. You won't make it if you don't eat," he tries again.

"Not hungry," Jim says, and it's short and clipped.

"Dammit, you haven't eaten all day, eat some damn food." It's harsher than Leonard meant, but he's frustrated and tired and he knows Jim won't look after himself.

This time Jim moves, turns almost violently in his chair to glare at Leonard. It's like a switch has been thrown, and the Jim he's looking at now is a furious one.

"Why do you care, huh? What's it to you?" Jim almost spits. Leonard's brow furrows.

"Jim, what-?"

"You're always breathing down my neck, telling me to do this and do that. I've been on my own since I was ten, alright? I know how to take care of myself."

Jim turns back to his studies, leaving Leonard reeling. He knows he should leave it alone, drop it, because Jim's obviously not himself right now, and he doesn't need to push him. But he won't leave it at that, dammit, not if he has a say in this.

"What the hell?" he says, and lets the shock color his tone. "I'm just trying to help you pass your tests tomorrow."

Jim isn't looking at him again, but Leonard can feel the anger rolling off him in waves.

"You can stop pretending like you care, you know. I don't give a shit. I don't need some grumpy doctor who abandoned his family in Georgia watching my back all the damn time like I'm some kind of replacement." Jim turns, looking at him now. "D'you stick around so long cause I'm George Kirk's kid? Figure you'll get something from me?"

Leonard blinks at Jim, the words sinking into his skin like barbs better than well-aimed. It cuts better than a knife, and Leonard finds, for a moment, that his anger rises to Jim's level.

"The only thing I want from you is to get away," Leonard says, standing in a fury.  "Shut the fuck up, Jim, and leave me alone."

He can feel Jim's eyes on him as he walks to the door.

"Don't follow me," he says, and makes sure to slam the door behind him.

 

 

Because it's Jim, and god forbid he follow a single instruction in his life, he finds Leonard in the shuttle bay not twenty minutes later.

He says nothing as he sinks down the wall beside Leonard. The silence is tense and angry, and Jim's trying to find the right words to say.

"Didn't think I'd find you here," he says. Leonard resists the urge to sigh. That would be why it took twenty minutes instead of two.

"Figured you wouldn't look for me here."

"You were almost right."

Everything about Leonard is angry and distant, and Jim gets it.

He opens his mouth to try and force out the apology that keeps getting stuck in his throat, but Leonard holds up a hand.

"Don't tell me you're sorry. I know you are. But what the hell, Jim?"

It's not the tone that Jim directed at him. That's not the first time they've fought, not even the first time they've fought without a reason. But it's the first time Jim's taken his trust, his secrets and his past, and turned them into a weapon so vicious it had killed him before he realized he was bleeding.

"I don't know," Jim says, and there's frustration hiding just under the surface. He's frustrated with himself, at the words that won't come and the feelings that hide behind the walls in his heart.

"I didn't mean it," he says. "I know that doesn't take it back."

"Damn right it doesn't."

Jim lets his head hit the back of the wall and closes his eyes for a moment. There's still a kind of warmth, sitting together like this, despite the tightness in the atmosphere around them. It's the kind of warmth Jim craves, can't live without.

"Look," he says, eventually. "I made a mistake. I made a hell of a lot of mistakes. I'm not George, never gonna be, and I'm don't know if I'm Jim, or if I even know who he is anymore. The only thing I know with any certainty, is that whoever Jim Kirk is, he's better with Leonard McCoy by his side."

 

 

 

5\. (in love)

  
The fifth time Jim talks about his father, he's in love. They're sitting on the roof of their dorm building, the usual place Jim where drags him to look at the stars.

"Mom says that's how dad wooed her," he says, quiet in the already quiet night. "He'd take her out to the fields outside of town and name all the constellations and all the stars." There's a pause when Jim sighs, but this time he doesn't sound angry or sad. "I'll never be like him, not like that."

Leonard notices the regret in his voice, hears it often enough in his own. It makes him think about why he's here, _here_ , on the roof with this enigmatic maniac of a genius who makes his heart stutter. About what that means.

"Seems genetic, though, your freakish obsession with those things," Leonard says, because it's easier to say the things that roll off his tongue than to say the things that roll in his chest.

"Those things?" Jim laughs, and it's one of the rare, real ones Leonard's only heard a few times in the two years they've been here. "Those things are where we're going, Bones."

"Hold your horses, there, cowboy," Leonard says. "I'm not in love with space, like you happen to be."

"What's not to love?" Jim says. Leonard bites his tongue on the _disease_ and _darkness_ comments. Instead, he watches the way the lights reflect in Jim's eyes, turning that usual bright blue into a dark, rich one full of stars.

"There's nebulas and galaxies and planets and moons and suns," Jim says with a sigh. "Doesn't it make you feel small?"

"Makes me feel like a damn ant. What's good about feeling that tiny and unimportant?"

"It's human, Bones. That's what it is to feel human. We're small, but not unimportant. We're the poets who write the stories in the sky."

"Stories in the sky, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Jim says, his smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "The constellations. Ancient stories that'll last forever." Jim's sigh is a happy one, and Leonard wonders if he'll ever understand the kind of love Jim feels for the stars. He thinks, as he looks at the stars reflected in Jim's eyes, that he might already know.

"That one over there is Andromeda. She's a princess, daughter of Cephus and Cassiopeia," Jim says, pointing to the constellations as he says their names. "It all starts with Cassiopeia. See, she claimed that she was prettier than..."

Leonard listens to the sound of Jim's voice more than the words he says. He thinks Jim might be somewhere around halfway through when his eyelids start getting heavy.

"Are you trying to woo me?" Leonard says, a yawn interrupting his words. Jim stutters to a stop.

"Am I _what_?"

"You said your dad wooed your mom with stories about the constellations. Are you trying to woo me?"

Leonard's not fully awake, not really, but he doesn't miss the way Jim tenses and stills, face going blank.

"Is it a problem if I am?" He keeps his tone a careful neutral.

Leonard rolls onto his side. Maybe it's the sleep slowing his filter, but for the first time he finds the truth is the easiest thing to say.

"I'd say it's not a problem. It might even be working."

He lets his gaze wander across Jim's profile, the sweep of his nose and the shadow of his eyelashes, the curve of his jaw and the shiny lights in his eyes. Jim shifts.

"Stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"With _those_ eyes."

"What eyes?"

Jim finally rolls over, too, and they're face to face on the roof of their dorm, surrounded by stars.

"Eyes like I'm something special."

"You are something special."

Jim rolls back to face the sky again, and Leonard sighs.

"Stop it," Jim says, and Leonard would say he sounded mad, if it weren't for the way his voice breaks over the words.

"Why are you so afraid of being loved?" Leonard says. Jim's eyes close and he takes a deep breath.

"Don't you dare say you're not worth it," Leonard adds before Jim can speak. Jim's exhale could have been a shadow of a laugh.

"I hate sleeping by myself," Jim admits, as if that explains it all. "I get so...attached. But I never know how to make them stay. Let them stay."

He's back on his side again, staring at Leonard with those too blue eyes that seem to see right into his soul. He reaches out with a hesitant hand and lightly traces Leonard's jaw down to his chin.

"How did I make you want to stay?" he asks, and he sounds equally reverent and sad.

"You're you," Leonard says, matching tone. "You're Jim Kirk, and that's why I'm still here."

"But I'm nothing like..."

"Did I say I wanted George?" Leonard raises his voice just a little.

"He'll never be like you. Not to me."

Jim blinks at him.

"I'm in love with you," he blurts, and his face morphs into a look of genuine shock. Leonard smiles, and keeps smiling, because it feels good to smile like that.

"Don't worry, kid," Leonard says, and runs his hands through Jim's hair in a way that's half childish, half intimate. "I love you, too."

 

 

 

+1. (his dad talks to him)

  
The one time George talks to his son is when Jim graduates. It's a ceremonial thing, mostly for show, because the ship that saved the planet was full of kids who hadn't officially graduated yet.

For once, it's an event Jim enjoys. He watches the cadets cross the stage, watches the cheers and the shouts and the hugs, and Starfleet finally feels like a home.

He's startled out of his thoughts by a bump against his shoulder.

"Be careful, or people might start to think that smile on your face means something," Leonard says, and Jim laughs. It's the happiest he's been in a long time.

Jim's hand finds Leonard's and he squeezes.

"Maybe that's not such a bad thing."

 

 

After the well wishes and the parties and the promises to stay in touch, they make their way back to their dorm. It's the last time they'll make this walk, the last night they'll spend here as Starfleet students.

Leonard's got messages on his PADD from Joanna and his mother. Jim hears the excitement in the video from his spot on the sofa, and doesn't comment on the way he knows Leonard's choked up.

Jim looks over when he drops onto the couch beside him, dropping a PADD in Jim's lap.

"Joanna says congratulations to Uncle Jim," he says, and Jim looks at him in surprise. Leonard shrugs.

"There's people who care about you, Jim," he says, and it's a casual statement that hits Jim like a train.

"Speaking of, aren't you gonna check your PADD?"

Jim shakes his head to clear his thoughts.

"There's nothing to check," he says, but as the words leave his mouth, he notices the flash in the top corner.

He turns it on slowly, and there's a small, sharp gasp when he sees the notification.

_1 New Message, Winona Kirk_

His mother's face materializes on the screen with a smile, and for once it's not fake.

"Hey there, Jim," she says. "Congratulations on the graduation. Sorry I couldn't be there."

She pauses, and there's a brief, dark look that crosses her face.

"Anyway, there's something I want to show you. I sent it along with this."

Jim doesn't miss the way she wipes quickly under her eye.

"I've got to go, but congratulations again. No one deserves it more than you."

The screen goes dark before another video is playing. It's old, older than Jim is, and it takes him a moment to recognize the face looking back at him.

"Dad," he says, barely a whisper.

 _"There we go,"_ George says, and Jim makes a sort of choking sound as he covers his mouth.

_"Hey, kiddo. How's it going? Your mom and I are about to leave for a mission, and the doctor thinks you'll probably be born on the ship. You've already changed our lives. It's weird to think that the next time I'm on Earth, I'll be able to hold you."_

George pauses, shakes his head.

_"You're already the most incredible thing in my life. I can't wait to see what you do. I love you, kiddo."_

The video ends and Jim's frozen. He blinks as his vision goes blurry, and he knows he's crying, but he can't think about anything except the way his father's voice sounds when it's happy, the way he looks when he smiles.

There's a hand on his arm and he jumps.

"Jim?"

It's Bones, of course it is, who brings him back to earth.

"I get why she couldn't look at me without thinking of him," he says, and the words are thick with emotion.

He knows what George Kirk looks like, of course he does, but it's different. This is his dad, not the Starfleet officer. He thinks of all the times he said he'd never be like George, and the irony is bittersweet.

"I wish I knew him," he says, and this time there's no anger, no sadness. Because he's not George Kirk, and the pieces of Jim Kirk are finally starting to come together.  
And when he sighs, it's soul-deep, and he feels the ghost finally, _finally_ drifting away.


End file.
